LETTER FROM COVENTRY

Wigs, women and song

The Tribune's Tom Hundley weighs in on a musical that gently mocks everything about Margaret Thatcher

February 12, 2006|By Tom Hundley, the Tribune's chief European correspondent

COVENTRY, England — It has been more than 15 years since Margaret Thatcher ruled Britannia. For Britons in their 20s, the Thatcher Era is childhood memory.

Some of those memories have been stirred in a smart and lively stage production based on the life of the Iron Lady that opened here last week to encouraging reviews.

After the improbable but wildly successful "Jerry Springer, The Opera," it was inevitable that we would have "Thatcher, The Musical."

The Springer "opera" gets easy laughs with songs about men who like to wear diapers. The possibilities would seem more limited with a song-and-dance routine about the 1984 coal miners strike or the Falklands War.

But the British are masters at seeing the satirical possibilities in themselves, and Foursight Theatre, an all-female company that wrote and staged this production, upholds the tradition admirably.

Eight actresses play Thatcher at various stages of her career. All wear a similar plastic wig--more like a helmet--a caricature of the Iron Lady's signature coif. They also take turns at playing the men in her life: husband Denis, a grinning and none-too-bright Ronald Reagan and the various male ministers who served in her government.

The real Thatcher, who is 80 and no longer able to make public appearances, remains a polarizing figure in Britain, especially this part of Britain, the gritty industrial heartland where thousands lost their jobs and whole communities were rendered "redundant" by her economic reforms.

Not surprisingly, there was a brief attempt by protesters to disrupt the opening performance, but Thatcher receives a balanced treatment in the production.

In one sense, this is a feminist take on a powerful woman who had little time for feminism and who once remarked, "What's women's lib ever done for me?"

Thatcher's outsize ambition, her high opinion of her political skills and sex appeal, and her sense of self-importance are all gently and sympathetically teased.

"I am the best thing that ever happened to this country," she tells herself, brandishing her famous handbag like a scepter.

And when she decides it's time to crush the coal miners, the song on her lips is "I've got the urge to purge."

Thatcher is shown at her flag-waving, jingoistic worst during the Falklands War, but as the curtain closes on this sketch, Sarah Thom, who plays an elderly, Greek chorus Thatcher throughout the play, points a finger at the audience and reminds them " . . . and you loved me for it."

The musical, three years in the making, is based largely on the public record of Thatcher's spoken words.

According to Deborah Barnard and Naomi Cooke, co-directors, the idea was "to explore the nature of power, particularly in the hands of world leaders. What happens when power begins to reach a tipping point? Once power has been tasted, is it an inevitable human flaw to cling to it no matter what?"

Thatcher was brought down by the arrogance of her power. Her high-handed treatment of the men who served her government provoked a Cabinet revolt. She, of course, saw it as a betrayal.

As the story draws to a close, a long out-of-power and slightly dotty Thatcher wonders whether her funeral will make the front pages. Her Greek chorus alter ego yanks her by the collar and tells her to get a grip.

"A prime minister is meant to be intimidating, not a floppy thing in a chair," says the alter ego Thatcher, and then, wagging a finger at the audience: "Don't you dare feel sorry for me. I am the Iron Lady."

Love her or hate her--and few in Britain are lukewarm on Thatcher--the message here is that Thatcherism remade Britain and has become an indelible part of the nation's genetic coding. "Look into the eyes of Tony Blair--I am there," she sings.

Actually, all eight of them are singing, a chorus line of helmeted Thatchers in purple feathered boas.